Catching up (25+ months is a lot of ground)....

Well, it has been approximately 2 years and 6 weeks (give or take a few hours) since my last posting, so I thought I should try to bring things up to date.

The short form-moved, changed jobs, had a few losses, a few scares, and a gain or two along the way.

Losses: My paternal grandfather passed suddenly shortly after my last journal entry. A few months before I moved back, my remaining paternal great-aunt also passed (but I was unable to return for that funeral), and I also learned of the passing of one of my former professors. Since
moving back my brother's paternal grandmother passed, as did several of my neighbors from childhood, and one of my instructors from high school, whose impact on my path was more than I had realized.

Scares: My dad had knee surgery. My brother was in for a few days after some concern following the results of a test. A cousin shattered his leg in a fall and had to crawl across a good bit of the farm to his house, where he was found by a neighbor the next morning after he didn't show up for work without calling. A good friend fell from the lighting grid in the theater in which he was working, and has been in the hospital a good bit of the past 10-11 months as a result. My sister had surgery a few weeks ago to remove two "spots" they strongly suspect are cancerous.

Gains (I): My sister had a boy last year, about two weeks before my birthday.

Gains (II): A year ago yesterday (06 Aug), my brother remarried. Two good friends of mine planned to marry, but that was put on hold by his
accident (see paragraph 4, above). A good friend proposed to his girlfriend, and asked me to be a groomsman at the wedding (currently scheduled for
Jan 2008).

Yes, paragraph 2 (above) mentioned that I moved again, and changed jobs. I took a new job about 16 months ago. I got an offer for a job back in my
home state of Texas, and for a number of reasons decided to take it. All in all, the experience of living in Georgia was a good one, but most of the
time there my heart was still in Texas. I do miss the friends I made while there, though, and hope they are well.

(And yes, for those of you who may remember the saga with the leak in the apartment, I did not forget that on move-out. I had prints of the photos I had taken made, and gave them to the apartment complex, just in case.)

The new job has been... well, a job. I'm now doing both system administration and technical support, so it has its days... and its days.
(And yes, what they say is true-some days it isn't even worth chewing through the straps.) I have gotten to do a few things perl-related in
it, though, including building a set of spam filters using MimeDefang (including one custom configuration for a particular client, that did some interesting things with forwardings), as well as a chance to do some XML/XSLT processing.

That last part reminds me-I had started working on the idea for a module for a particular application of XML, which I intended to release, but in getting back to it a few months ago, found that I had made a rather nasty error in the design. When I have free time again, I may try to return to it again. I half expect to see someone come out with a similar one before then, though, but we will have to wait and see, I guess. (I may see about putting my thoughts together soon on that idea, so you may see a seperate posting on that sometime soon.)

As to my hobby of photography, I haven't gotten to practice it that much since the last posting. Most noteworthy was probably that I was asked to be the photographer for my brother's wedding. That did a bit of a job on the nerves, trying to make sure I got the shots right for that occasion, but
they were happy with the shots I got, which is all that really matters in the end. Otherwise, I haven't had many more opportunities, although I did get to take photographs at a seminar I attended a few weeks ago, which may appear with an article being written for a local magazine about the event.

Anyway, as with my other entries, for those of you who've made it through this far, my thanks, and my appologies for the level of boredom I've probably continued to instill. Until my next attempt to cure your insomnia, take care.

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